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Carrie Longton & Justine Roberts

We were recently joined by Carrie Longton and Justine Roberts, the co-founders of Mumsnet, for our weekly Lunchtime Masterclass.

Mumsnet is an online community of parents sharing advice, support and product recommendations. Over the last ten years it has grown into the UK’s busiest social network for parents, with nearly four million visits a month and 25,000 posts a day. This web chat is now closed but you can see all the questions posed to Carrie and Justine, and their answers, in the transcript below.

Founded in 2000 by new mothers Carrie and her friend Justine, Mumsnet has become an ‘internet phenomenon’, according to the Sunday Telegraph, and ‘the country’s most popular meeting point for parents,’ according to The Times. So much so that even politicians such as David Cameron and Ed Miliband, celebrities and authors regularly take part in their web chats

Over the past decade, Mumsnet has grown into UK's most influential voice for parents. With opinions, advice, support, news and reviews, it is an invaluable resource for parents. It now hosts over 200 local sites, a network of bloggers, and regularly campaigns on issues including support for families with SEN (special educational needs), improvements in miscarriage care and freedom of speech on the internet.

Following calls from 93 percent of Mumsnet users who said Britain’s businesses weren’t family friendly enough, Mumsnet launched their Family Friendly programme to encourage and help businesses develop family friendly initiatives both for customers and employees in their workplace cultures. Mumsnet also recently launched a new style and beauty section where the beauty secrets shared by thousands of Mumsnet users have been distilled into an indispensible guide for women everywhere.

Carrie live in London with her husband and three children - Grace, 12, Noah, nine and five-year-old Mimi. Justine is a mother of four - 12-year old identical twins – Lola and Scarlet - Jake, who is eight and Jesse, five.

This masterclass has now finished, but you can read the full transcript from the discussion in the comments section, below.